It was I who got rid of the boy.
I informed on the movement so as to punish them both. And yes, I beckoned Bukhosi to safety – only because I wanted to make sure he ended up with the wargs and orcs, as I had intended. He was panting like a dog and his skin was slithery with sweat. Busy grinning stupidly at me. I saw my chance when a pair of black boots galumphed past our brambly bush. I squeezed the boy’s hand to still his heart; his breathing was spookily loud. His grin widened as he nodded, trying to quieten down, gulping air through his open mouth. I winked at him and smiled. My smile evaporated as I grabbed him by his slithery arm and pressed my hand to the small of his back. I shoved him, hard. He stumbled out of our hiding place, hitting the ground with his shoulder, skidding right into the policeman’s boots.
He looked up and looked at me. His eyes were wild. They were the last thing I saw. Those emerald eyes of his glinting with surprise. And then the policeman pulled out his baton and went to work on him. Di di thud thud punch punch, like that. His eyes never left me. I cringed and looked away briefly, catching sight of the wide-eyed pupils of McKeurtan Primary School standing along the school fence to my right, watching the policeman beating up the boy, clinging to the fence like shrubs, their shirts a summer viridescent, their jerseys a spring verdant. They began to cry.
I’m no monster; I didn’t enjoy witnessing the policeman beating him like that. I would have stopped it, if I could. All I had wanted was for them to take him away, clean and fast, with no fuss. I hadn’t known they would brutalize him before my eyes, like that. And he, he could have sold me out. He could have cried out to the policeman or pointed at me or something. But he didn’t. He just kept staring at me. The policeman grabbed his bloodied arms and dragged him to a police van parked outside Stanley Hall across the road, like he was a sack of mealie-meal. Like he was nothing.
I stared at the police van across the street, glimpsing the boy, who was still looking at me, his emerald eyes a fierce, sparkling green, and next to him Dumo, whose face was a congealed mass of blood. Just a glimpse, and then the police van slammed shut and swallowed them and they were gone.
Everyone has been glum, and Christmas Day has been sombre even though the ZESA people wished us a Merry Christmas by not taking away the electricity and Mother performed her black market magic and got us a leg of lamb to roast, complete with carrots, spinach, celery, beetroot, cucumbers, tomatoes, butternut, gem squash, cauliflower, potatoes, sweet potatoes and garlic paste, which she whipped up into a most delicious stew along with some salads, boiled squash, mashed butternut and potatoes baked in butter, garnished with a dollop of fresh cream and a sprig of parsley on top. It’s all for Bukhosi, she keeps saying, peering out the window, wondering what time he will arrive.
‘And then?’ she asked this morning when Father walked into the kitchen, saw me, groaned, turned around and shuffled back into the sitting room.
I leaned in, speaking out of the corner of my mouth. ‘I think it’s because of the talk I gave him a few nights ago, Ma. I told him I won’t let him beat you, not when I’m around. I don’t care what it is you’ve done. Even this thing with the Reverend Pastor, it’s not your fault, I told him. If he had been taking care of his business like he should have …’
She blushed, Mother, and lowered her eyes.
‘He tried to chase me away,’ I said, shaking my head.
‘What?’ she looked up at me.
‘Yes, Ma! He wants to remain here with you, by himself, so he can do whatever he wants to you. He knows that as long as I’m around, I won’t let him lay a finger on you. Do you need help with those veges, Ma?’
She handed me the knife, and then froze. Looked me up and down. Stared at my lime sports shirt with the Nike tick on the left breast. ‘Where did you get that shirt?’
I looked down innocently at my shirt, and then looked back up innocently at Mother. ‘Why, this old thing, Ma?’
‘Bukhosi. That’s Bukhosi’s shirt.’
‘Oh? He also has a shirt like this? This is mine. I’ve always had it. I love it so, it’s my favourite.’
She frowned. Looked long and hard at my lovely shirt, then shook her head as if shaking away a dream before handing me the knife and motioning to the cucumbers, mumbling, ‘Thin slices, I want really thin slices.’
For Christmas, we cooked a meal large enough to feed a multitude. She had meant it to be for our lunch, but when four p.m. chimed and still there was no sign of Bukhosi, Father complained that he was starving. We were in the sitting room, seated at the cobalt kitchen table, the lamb roast laid out on a tray in the centre, surrounded by the dishes of baked potatoes, mashed butternut, boiled squash, stew, spinach-and-tomato salad in a dash of olive oil, cauliflower-and-carrot salad in fresh cream, and sliced cucumbers sprinkled with black pepper. Mother had put out her best cutlery, even allowing us to use her squat, crystal glasses to drink water.
I quickly piped up that Bukhosi could eat when he arrived and we would get the pleasure of his company all the same. Father looked up at me sharply, then. He announced, suddenly, that he wasn’t hungry.
‘But you just said you were starving,’ Mother said.
He mumbled something about wanting to lie down and eating later, getting up as he did so.
I suggested that he ought to sit and eat with us. We didn’t want Mother’s efforts to go to waste, did we? It would be better to eat as a family.
‘I insist,’ I added when he seemed to hesitate.
Sighing, he sat down, and asked for the water jug.
I handed him the jug, which he seemed to accept reluctantly.
Mother went over to the wall, stood on my brother Bukhosi’s sofa, unhooked his baby portrait from the wall, got down, came back to the table and placed it on the empty seat before his plate. Father watched her but said nothing. We closed our eyes to say grace. Mother asked the Good Lord to bless this meal, asked him to bless our Bukhosi, wished our Bukhosi a Merry Christmas, asked the Lord to look after our Bukhosi and bring him back safe and sound, told the Lord she loved her husband dearly and that she hoped the Lord made sure her husband knew this, then said a loud Amen. When we opened our eyes, Father was glaring at her.
She said, ‘Please will you cut the lamb for us, Baba?’
‘Why don’t you ask the pastor to do it for you.’
Mother blushed, then got up and picked up the knife. I got halfway up out of my chair.
‘Let me do it, Mama.’
‘Sit down,’ said Father.
I sat down. We watched, silent, as Mother carved the lamb roast, which was tender and didn’t take much effort. Father allowed her to dish for him lamb roast and boiled squash and mashed butternut and baked potatoes and stew and spinach-and-tomato salad and cauliflower-and-carrot salad but shook his head no to the sliced cucumbers.
‘Are you sure?’ she said. ‘They taste really good. I put a little bit of chilli, I know how much you like it.’
‘Are you sure it is I who likes chilli and not the pastor,’ said Father.
Mother put the dish down. Her hands touched the lamb rack, then the potato tray, then the spinach-and-tomato salad bowl, and then, patting her weave in an absent-minded fashion, she finally took her seat next to Father, and began to nibble on her food. I ate heartily, smacking my lips hmmm hmmm every now and then, complimenting Mother on her delectable dishes; but it was no use, they both ignored me, Mother staring at her plate, Father glaring at Mother, neither of them eating their food.
To waste such scrumptious food during these foodless times in this nation ought to be a punishable offence.
After the disastrous lunch, with much of the food still remaining on the table, in criminal heaps despite my best efforts to demolish it, I decided to show Mother and Father the Christmas present I had got them. I asked them to remain seated, rushed to my pygmy room and returned with a framed portrait, of myself, slightly bigger than Bukhosi’s enlarged baby portrait. I had it retouched and framed at the Kodak shop in town a few days ago.
It took a long time for me to get just the right photo. I tried all the poses for the cameraman at Kodak, tried putting a hand on my waist, tried to stand tall, tried a sitting position, tried smiling, tried frowning, tried to wear no expression at all; but it was no use, for all my photogenic properties, none of the pictures had that imposing quality that my father has in his photos. And so, finally, I photoshopped a snapshot of me smiling what I hoped was an overpowering smile onto a photo of my father, the one where he looks super regal in his navy blue Air Commander’s uniform. Now, that’s a photo!
I held it up to Mother and Father, beaming. Father was gaping at the photo. Mother smiled politely, cocking her head. ‘I didn’t know you wanted to be a soldier,’ she said. ‘Where did you get that uniform from?’
I shrugged. ‘Oh, I borrowed it from… my friend,’ I said, baring my teeth at Father, who now sat slumped on his chair by the table, agape, hand frozen, crystal glass in mid-air. ‘He was very happy to lend it to me. I told him it was a gift for you both, and that I wanted to look my best. He says to say hello. You hear that, Father? Our friend says hello.’
Father moaned.
Mother frowned at him. ‘Are you all right?’ When he didn’t respond, she sighed sadly; no doubt she thought he was ignoring her because of her shenanigans with that Reverend Pastor. She turned back to me, raising an eyebrow at the portrait. ‘It looks … good. Thank you. I’m sorry we didn’t think of getting you anything, what with everything that’s been happening …’
‘Your cooking is present enough, Ma!’ I said, turning around to face the sofas. I pretended to look around the room, as though searching for the perfect spot for the portrait. And then, I made my way to the boy’s sofa, climbed it, and fastened my portrait to the nail on the wall, in the space where his had been.
‘What are you doing?’ cried Mother.
‘I thought it would sit perfectly here,’ I said, twisting my neck to give her an innocent look, my hands still holding the portrait. She had stood up.
‘That’s where Bukhosi’s photo sits,’ she said, no longer smiling.
‘Oh, I can always take it down when he returns,’ I said. ‘I’m sure he won’t mind.’
Before either of them could interfere, I whipped out my Nokia, frowned at the screen for several moments, and then said, ‘Oh, look! A message from Bukhosi.’
Mother’s face lit up. ‘What does it say?’
I turned to Father, smiling. I got down from the boy’s sofa and opened the Facebook message. I read out loud:
Hey, bra! I hope all is good! How’s ma? I won’t be coming any more, at least not til maybe next year! I got a job n im working over the Xmas break. I need more time away. Tell Baba I’m working thru all the stuff he did 2 me, I just need time away to sort thru the trauma he caused me n forgive him properly.
N u can use my room while I’m away. In fact, we can share,
I’d love nothing more than to be around my big bro! Love u, bra! Will holla soonest.
Xx
Khosi
Mother’s smile evaporated. ‘So, he’s not on his way already?’
I cluck-clucked sympathetically. ‘It seems not. I’m sorry, Ma. At least, he’s keeping in touch! He says he’ll come after the Christmas break. That’s something to look forward to.’
But she didn’t smile. She sighed, slid to her chair and cupped her head. Father, too, shut his eyes, bowed his head into his hands and sighed. Mother blinked at him, and then looked at me with her eyebrows raised.
I shook my head with what I hoped was the right measure of confusion, walked over to Father and nudged his shoulder. He looked up.
‘Isn’t it good news, Father? The boy is willing to forgive you. He understands the power of forgiveness. Isn’t that great?’
But he was looking beyond me at the wall. I followed his stare, to my portrait.
It has just the perfect pictographic ambiguity, just like that picture, My Wife and My Mother-in-law, by W. E. Hill, where one moment, you see a young belle with her face turned away, and the next moment, you see an old woman with a hooked nose, all in the same photo. I can see how to Father I look, in that portrait, dressed as I am in that august Air Commander’s uniform, like a revitalized, younger, handsomer version of my father, Black Jesus, and then, to someone like Mother, I look just like me, Zamani.
I turned away from the portrait, back to Father, whose eyes, now shimmering, were glued to it. ‘Isn’t my photo great? Don’t I look handsome in it?’
He whimpered.
I turned to Mother, whose eyes, too, I was annoyed to see, were glistening. ‘I’m sure my little bro will write to us soon with the exact date of his arrival,’ I said. ‘I’ll write and ask him. He wouldn’t want us to have a sad Christmas. Let’s not spoil what should be a happy day. Now,’ I beamed at them both, Mother and Father. ‘When shall I move in?’
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Samantha Shea who, by the sheer force of her belief in this work, made magic happen. I am grateful to Maria Guarnaschelli for her encouragement. A very special thank you to the wonderful James Roxburgh for his heroic editing, and to Ashley Patrick for her brilliant editorial eye. It has been magical – ngiyabonga! Thank you to everyone at Georges Borchardt, Atlantic Books and W. W. Norton for welcoming this book and its author.
I am greatly indebted to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop for the support it gave this young writer from Zimbabwe, making the years I spent there some of the most crucial to this work. Thank you to Connie Brothers, Deb West, Jan Zenisek and Kelly Smith. Many thanks to Lan Samantha Chang, T. Geronimo Johnson, Charles D’Ambrosio and Bennett Sims for the care you showed House of Stone. To NoViolet Bulawayo, Garth Greenwell, Nyuol Lueth Tong, Marcus Burke and Jamel Brinkley; thank you for going above and beyond. Thank you to those who have accompanied me on this journey, including but not limited to Nana Nkweti, Okwiri Oduor, Nicholas Richards, Dini Parayitam, Avro Chakraborty, Heidi Kaloustian, Christa Fraser, Bongani Ncube Zikhali, Kwandi Ncube, Nothando Moyo, Sinokuthaba Moyo, Mabel Mnensa, Micah Stack and David Wystan Owen. Work on this novel was supported by a Maytag Fellowship, a Teaching Writing Fellowship and a Rydson Award from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop; many thanks to the University of Iowa, and Laura and Marlyn Rydson, for their generosity. My work was also supported by the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, an Inprint Fondren Foundation/Michael and Nina Zilkha Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Arts and Literary Arts Residency; thank you.
I am indebted to my mother, Thenjiwe Dube-Moyo, my sister, Nobubelo Moyo, and my family back home, who have been supportive throughout the writing of House of Stone. Thank you to Mama Burke, Xandria Burke and Ayana Burke for your love and support. And to the beautiful people of my homeland, Zimbabwe, you full of abundant hope you, you tender people you, this was all about you, all about us, all about everything.
Ngiyabonga!
Houston, Texas
February 2018
House of Stone Page 33